


helpless friendships

by sandyk



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post townhall, happy pregnant Amy and Jonah together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 03:13:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16054286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Amy is surely pretending to believe in ghosts just to spite Jonah. But they're still happy together.





	helpless friendships

**Author's Note:**

> For the trope bingo spot Haunted House. Thanks A! Title from the National's I'll Still Destroy You.

"Maybe," Amy said, leaning back in her chair like she did all the time and it worried Jonah. It worried him that she had a new center of gravity now that she was pregnant and what if she fell over? 

Amy snapped her fingers right in front of him. "Maybe you listen to too many podcasts," Amy said. "That's why you get caught wearing headphones at work. You're trying to catch up. Constantly."

"Possibly," Jonah said. He reached out for her arm. 

"Worried?" She rolled her eyes at him and tipped back further in her chair. Then she sat forward. "Dumbass, I'm fine."

"I don't know, I've really been into these true crime ones," Jonah said. He got sucked in and it was a rollercoaster ride, except more haunting. "There's so many of them. I keep thinking I'll trim down the ones I'm listening to, but I can't decide which ones to cull, you know?"

"Let me do it for you," she said, reaching for his phone. 

"No," he said. "I don't think you know my taste in podcasts well enough to make that choice."

"Oh, fine," Amy said. "But, seriously, don't let me catch you with those fancy bluetooth headphones hiding in your ear out on the floor again. I'll tell Dina."

"Tell me what?" Dina waddled in. She was due at any minute but she was intent on working until the very end. Jonah admired her for that. He was glad there were no chance Amy would be like that. Maybe she would. She was really hard up for money. 

"Nothing," Amy said. "Jonah doesn't want to give up any of his previous podcasts. He really likes the ones where women talk about murder."

"Like ghost stories?" Dina looked much less skeptical about ghosts than Jonah really wanted to see. Surely she didn't think they were real. There had to be someone sane in this store. 

Amy said, "No, he doesn't believe in ghosts."

"Who does?" Jonah shook his head. "No one answer that."

"There's a haunted house on the end of my block," Dina said. She was obviously forcing herself to stand. Jonah pulled out a chair for her and gestured. "Fine, since you insisted," she said, plopping herself down.

"For Halloween?"

"No, it's actually haunted," Dina said. "It's not some idiotic once a year scare tactic. It's an actual house where people were killed in gruesome ways that still cause negative energy that you can physically feel."

"Seriously?" Jonah refused to believe it.

"Of course she's serious," Amy said. "Sounds perfectly logical to me."

He said, "I don't believe in haunted houses."

"So you'd just live in a house where human beings were senselessly slaughtered? Walk over the floors where their life blood bled out and was scrubbed clean inadequately? Sure, why not, Jonah doesn't care about the negative energy or the places in the wall where their dying screams of anguish are still trapped in the paint," Dina said. 

"Yes, exactly," Jonah said. "I don't believe it."

"One time Caribou escaped, I went down to find him, up and down the street and then BAM." Dina slammed her hand on the table. Jonah jumped. Dina said, "Caribou flew out of the house like a parakeet out of hell. Or a parakeet out of a haunted house."

"That's definitely proof," Jonah said. 

"I believe her," Amy said, smiling. 

She had the same smug smile when he was driving her home. Sometimes she let him in, which he always liked. They had increasingly odd sex, odd because Amy was increasingly pregnant. Jonah had never had sex with a seriously pregnant person before. Amy said she remembered it was fun. She thought it was fun now. She said that to him. 

Of course sometimes she didn't let him in. Emma wasn't a huge fan of Jonah. She didn't hate him, but she didn't love him. Jonah knew enough about being a child of divorce to know no one liked Mom or Dad's serious dating partner. He didn't take it personally. Plus, Emma was in a pretty rough situation since she was about to be a big sister and Adam had made it clear he was going to be just as involved. 

Jonah wasn't worried about Adam and Amy getting back together. Amy was pretty clear on that one not happening. He didn't really understand why Amy was having this baby, but it wasn't to get back together with Adam. Or really about Adam. 

Amy said, "Stop thinking so much and come inside."

"Emma's home," Jonah said like an idiot. 

"Yes, she is. We've been dating, whatever, for months. She can deal," Amy said. 

"Okay," Jonah said. 

Emma was already in her room and she'd clearly ordered a pizza on her own so he'd dodged having to think of something to say at dinner. 

"You don't really believe in haunted houses," Jonah said. 

"How many places have you lived where someone died? Nowhere, right? You barely know anyone who's died," Amy said. It was gentle, though.

Jonah said, "I'm not talking about places where bad things happened and you were present, I get that. But actual ghosts? Come on."

Amy shrugged. "You're not going to convince me. I'm not ruling it out."

"But you can't, I mean, when we're dead, we're dead. There's nothing after that," Jonah said. 

"Is that the official Jewish position? Or the Jonah position?"

"There's never a single official Jewish position, we argue. Some things are official. But I think on the ghost thing, most of us don't believe. We're not big on heaven and hell, you know?" Jonah got up and started cleaning up the kitchen. "So Caspar and people in sheets? Really?"

"Really," Amy said. "Now I believe just to spite you."

"That's a great plan," Jonah said. 

"Yeah, I'm going to be haunted for life and you'll just be sitting there going, nope, I didn't see anything move, I didn't hear that sound, no ghosts la la la la," Amy said, imitating him really badly. 

"I say la la la all the time," Jonah said. He'd put everything away and loaded the dishwasher. "Okay to run?"

"Okay indeed," she said. "Ugh, time to try and sleep."

"You're going to have nightmares about ghosts because you're spiteful," Jonah said. 

"I'll make sure to hit you when I wake up in fear," Amy said. "Maybe just when I wake up, fear or not. No, wait, I'm going to pull your hair."

"And we're back to your favorite thing to tease me about," Jonah said. He followed her to her bedroom. She pulled off her pants and discarded her bra on her walk to her bathroom. He found her pregnancy pillow and fluffed it while he waited for her to get out. 

"It's not my favorite thing to tease you about," Amy said, from the bathroom. She always partially closed the door, enough so she didn't have to yell while they were talking. 

She got straight into bed and hugged her pillow. "Thanks for the fluffing," she said. 

"It's a placebo effect, you know," Jonah said. He got in the bed on his "side." He liked having a side. Amy had her pillow and he had her other side. "The pillow fluffing, I mean."

"Yeah, you're right, you're not doing anything nice for me at all," Amy said. "I'm going to use it as a weapon when the vengeful ghost you've angered all day comes for you tonight."

"Aww, you're going to defend me?" He snuggled closer to her. "Thanks, Amy."

"Maybe I'll change my mind," Amy mumbled. "Rub my back again."

"Of course," he said, quietly. She really did love that.


End file.
